Snow Blind
by madame.alexandra
Summary: . "That she could not love him plagued her until the bitter end." Catelyn Stark's final thoughts on Jon Snow. Insight on what may have influenced her overall coldness towards him. And an argument as to how her feelings can be seen from a slighted wife's point of view. Vague mentions of the Red Wedding.


_a/n: vaguely associated with The Red Wedding. basically, a vindication of Catelyn Stark, and perhaps an insight (my argument) in to why she shouldn't be disliked simply because of her treatment of Jon Snow. In other words, I really fucking like Catelyn Stark, and one should at least see her side, if not take it. _

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_"Let the boy live. Let him live and I'll love him. I'll be a mother to him_  
_I'll beg my husband to give him a true name, to call him a Stark and be done with it, to make him one of us._  
_And he lived. And I couldn't keep my promises. _  
_And everything that's happened since then, all this horror that's come to my family_  
_it's all because I couldn't love a motherless child."  
[Catelyn Stark; Dark Wings, Dark Words Season 3.2)_

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That she could not love Jon Snow plagued her until the bitter end.

Catelyn Stark was a proud woman but she was not arrogant; she was not dismissive of her own faults, and this she knew to be her greatest—that she could not love Jon Snow.

Her lord husband had ridden to war shortly after their wedding, leaving his wife to give him an heir in his absence, and Eddard Stark had returned with a babe that was not of her body, not of their marriage bed, and he came in to the nursery in the North, where she tended Robb with the boy, in his arms and he had said, with quiet sorrow:

"_He is motherless_."

Her eyes had met his, even as Robb nursed at her breast, and she saw the dishonor the noble Lord of Winterfell felt in his eyes. She had known then she could not love the crying, motherless Jon Snow.

She accepted her circumstance as all great ladies were expected to do; there were husbands who whored, husbands who abused, and husbands who drank, and she found good fortune in a man who felt sincere shame for the dishonor he had brought his wife, and yet she still could not love his baseborn son.

She gave him four more children, two beautiful girls, and two more strong boys. Sansa grew dainty while Arya grew wild; Bran climbed and Rickon chased his brothers on chubby legs, and among them in the safeguards of Winterfell was the bastard, loved by his siblings—until the moment he and Robb learned what Snow denoted, and the subtle change occurred—and loved by his father, but untouched by the love of a mother.

She raised Jon Snow, but she did not love him. She fed him, but she did not nourish him. She tended wounds when he was hurt, but she did not kiss his injuries. She watched him, but she did not protect him. She nursed him, but she did not nurture him.

She prayed that the pox take him, and when it struck, she stayed by his bed for sleepless nights on end, stricken with guilt, horrified that she could have wished such a thing on an innocent child. She cared for him until the fever broke and the shadow of death abated, and still it haunted her that she could not love him.

Would that she could be a better woman, a stronger woman, one who gave not into unfounded spite and misplaced jealousy; she was a but a human woman, and this was the flaw she did not take care to mend.

She could not love Jon Snow because he was the tangible reminder of the weakness that had bitten Ned. He was a vision of dishonor, a threat to her trueborn children, a memory of the years that had taken her husband away from her. Ned had gone to wage war, and had made time for the warm comfort of another woman while he battled, while Catelyn waited, and worried, and prayed.

She did not want her lord husband's eyes to look upon his bastard the same way he looked upon his trueborn children, and yet they did. Ned was tender towards the boy, he was paternal, he was kind and firm, and it left a constant pang of bitterness in Catelyn's heart.

She ached to think Ned had loved this bastard's mother in a way they would never love. Their marriage was good, forged in honor, and over the years, had bred deep trust, understanding, and love. But it was not the love of the songs that so turned Sansa's head; it would never be the passion and romance of the epics, and she wondered if such love had conceived Jon Snow, and for that—she could not love him.

She saw him grow from infancy to manhood, an unwavering specter of Ned's faults and of her own.

She did not deny that he was a good boy, a sweet boy. He did not tease Arya like her siblings teased her; he petted Sansa as she liked to be petted, he included the babies in his games; he was Robb's brother in arms.

Ned had asked her to take in this motherless bastard, and she had done so in silent forbearance. The boy's resemblance to Ned struck her in the heart each time she saw him; Jon Snow was an immovable reminder that she was too selfish, too angered, to spare the child her animosity.

She did not love Jon Snow for the unfortunate mistake of his birth, and she did not love him for the light he reflected on her.

He was loved by Winterfell, but Catelyn Stark did not love him.

She wanted to love him.

But one could not force a woman to love a bastard child any more than one could force a man to love an ugly woman.

She no longer prayed for the death of Jon Snow; she prayed for the strength to love him.

Her prayers were never answered.

She could not make herself love that boy.

She could not make herself love him any more than she could make herself hate her own trueborn children if asked.

She thought of Jon Snow as the blood ran from Robb's heart, as the sting of the arrow in her back paralyzed her, as she thought of broken Bran and baby Rickon, captive Sansa—and wild Arya.

He was the only Stark left to Winterfell, the baseborn boy she had not loved. Hidden away at The Wall, he was the only Stark left to her daughters, and to the men of the North who had seen him raised with the children of Catelyn and Eddard Stark.

He had Stark blood tainted with the white snowflakes of illegitimacy, and she could not love him. A motherless boy, and she could not love him—for the blindness his bastard name caused.

The hot blood of the Starks ran on the stones at Edmure Tully's wedding; the hot blood of the Starks would have to melt the snowflakes in Jon Snow's veins.

She had never been able to make herself love him.

It was her greatest fault until the bloody end.

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_-I am so new to this fandom it's not even funny; I started the third book this evening and experienced the horror of the Red Wedding when The Rains of Castamere aired last night. Be kind and give me an idea of how I've done? _

_-alexandra  
story #140_


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